Ko Mamaru te waka. Ko Ngati Kahu ki Whangaroa te iwi. I am currently a PhD student at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) at the Faculty of Maori Development, Te Ara Poutama. I am committed to making a positive difference for the Maori people in Aotearoa; an ancestry that I am very proud of. My doctorate is focused on providing a programme to solve the alcohol and drug addiction crisis within Maoridom. Under the concept of mana rangatiratanga- an individualised form of self-determination, the outcome will be a personal decolonisation from the self-colonisation of addiction. My vision is to provide the current and future generations of Maoridom with the alternative identity of being sober and drug-free, just as our tupuna before the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and advent of colonisation.